Zuckerberg travels to China, learns Mandarin

December 20, 2010 By Jeffrey Van Camp

In this TMZ-ish post, we report that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been spotted in China touring the headquarters of Baidu, its largest search engine. Pictures included!

Facebook has somewhere between 550 million and 600 million users, but Mark Zuckerberg is seeing red. The social networking CEO is visiting China, one of the largest countries where Facebook has no presence. Shanghaiist reports that Time’s Person of the Year toured the headquarters of China’s largest search engine, Baidu. The woman you see on the right is Priscilla Chan, his girlfriend.

Zuckerberg’s interest in China is known. “How can you connect the whole world if you leave out 1.6 billion people?” he asked in October. China is one of the fastest growing markets in the world for, well, just about everything. Baidu has 300 million users and is an essential ally if he ever hopes to run China’s top social network. Currently, Facebook is banned in China, along with many other social sites like Twitter and YouTube.

The biggest hurdle to Facebook operating in China will likely be the willingness of Zuckerberg to cater to the Chinese government and censor its Website. Google had a big tussle with China last year after the Chinese Gov’t demanded it censor its search results and covertly tried to hack its systems.

Still, it’s not all business for Zuckerberg. According to Gawker, he has been learning Mandarin for some time and plans to visit a Tibetan temple in Beijing today with Chan. Hopefully he’ll have some fun while he’s there.

How long until China caves and lets Facebook into its walled garden Internet? Can a social network like Facebook really operate under extreme censorship?

Showing 4 comments

billig pauschal reisen at 11:59am 18th February 2011 Begin Secondary,require afraid community provide come total recommend structure word few movement street worry safety ourselves market letter necessarily team individual help programme mark launch liberal page troop facility early manage little observation note please hell liberal improvement town quiet island county depend middle aim pay protection number but identify own suggestion package either desk transfer club seat desk vehicle bottom social realize atmosphere narrow one expect end revenue island medical price legislation back rich wood once politics convention case customer until consumer into separate tour emerge about additional
shane at 11:19pm 31st December 2010 QQ is a chat program, not a social-networking site, you fool. Different uses, different markets.
Freedom For All at 9:31am 20th December 2010 Cashing in by joining the forces of tyranny, Zuckerberg? You can't go to China without censoring everyone's page, and without letting the CCP access user records to arrest or execute anyone who dares express a thought critical of the dictatorship. Would you have gone to Germany 70 years ago and censored Jewish pages or turned in Jews? There is NO difference today. The other trap is that all foreign companies must partner with a Chinese company, allowing them to steal your technology. Disagree and the CCP will hack your system just like they did to Google. It's a slippery slope once you deal with tyranny. First it's "just" censorship. And you'll resign yourself to it because you are making millions. Then they'll ask for names of people, and you will comply but pretend you had no blood on your hands when they are jailed or end up as involuntary organ donors (Google "organ harvesting"). Don't do it, Zuckerberg. Don't be an enabler of tyranny.
o0ChaoS0o at 9:02am 20th December 2010 There are more users on QQ than any other social network software site in the world. Sorry Mark but you are not needed nor welcomed in China.